I got back to some painting. Just grey surfaces. Ultramarine blue and Burnt Siena make almost a black that becomes a beautifully soft grey with a little white. The grey can be nuanced with tints of other colours. The experience of putting these greys on a surface, nudging them gently in different directions with colour and touch is extremely satisfying.
Making delicate marks with the edge of a large brush, a physically understated coaxing of paint, engaged me with a visual and visceral gentleness that I had not anticipated when I started work. The surfaces seem as though they should work by themselves. (The voice from behind urges to me to do something useful!) They may identify a feeling but have no innate identity themselves. They are small areas cropped from an ocean of possibilities? They (or I) feel as though there is a need for need validation through a figurative element – something that can be pointed to and named, like a bird. So I shall have them around until I can trust them and the need subsides, or the object arrives. And having just photographed them to illustrate this post the void between word and image reasserts itself. It is possible to let both paint and words run away with you.
